For the second time in 18 months, Ryan Preece walked away from a frightening airborne crash at Daytona International Speedway.
With only five laps to go in Sunday’s (Feb. 16) Daytona 500, second-place Christopher Bell spun right in front of the field after a push gone wrong from Cole Custer. Bell then hit the outside wall and ricocheted directly into the path of Preece’s No. 60 Ford.
A look at the incident on Lap 196 of the #DAYTONA500. pic.twitter.com/6OJa154GZC
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) February 17, 2025
The impact launched Preece’s car into a wheelie, and after gliding in a wheelie-like formation for approximately three seconds, the car landed on its roof, climbed the steep turn 3 banking, impacted the outside wall and flipped back onto its wheels before coming to rest on the apron.
Preece put the window net down and emerged unscathed from his torn-up car, just as he had done in 2023. But while he walked away, the veteran voiced grave concern that it might only be a matter of time in this style of racing before someone won’t be as lucky.
“I don’t know what the right thing to say right now is, but I think the thing I want to say as a father, as a racer is we keep beating on a door, hoping for a different result,” Preece said. “And I think we know where there’s a problem at superspeedways, so I don’t want to be the example when [death] finally does get somebody.
“I don’t want it to be me.”
The Next Gen car’s design was under heavy scrutiny after flips by Corey LaJoie and Josh Berry in back-to-back weeks last season; the decision to add roof rails to the cars at Daytona in August was unsuccessful in keeping them on the ground.
With yet another airborne crash to start 2025 — the fifth at Daytona in NASCAR Cup Series competition since 2022 — Preece raised the same concerns about the car and its propensity for liftoff at high-speed tracks.
“Something needs to be done because cars lifting off the ground like that, that felt honestly felt worse than Daytona in 2023,” Preece added.
“Everything about it [was worse]. Airborne, heading toward the fence, it’s just not a good place to be. With a hit like that, I don’t think it should’ve gone airborne, right?”
That’s a question NASCAR and the industry will ponder for the next two months before the Cup cars return to the faster, longer and higher-banked Talladega Superspeedway in April.
For Preece, it was a disastrous ending to what began as a promising Speedweeks. Days after nearly qualifying on the front row for the race, he ended his Daytona debut with RFK Racing in 32nd.
“I’m just not very happy,” Preece explained. “Ultimately, I think the thing I want to say is we had a really fast car. It’s just, you can only do so much when everybody stacks up. I’m safe, just frustrated.”
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.
I’m over this. We don’t need this Daytona demo derby
So I know quite a bit about these cars and I’m not sure what Preece is referring to, unless its that drivers are trying to “win at all costs” and driving like a 3 year old on a minibike, If you add downforce you will need to add power. Nascar will not do that as they chase the unicorn that is the 4th manufacturer. They don’t want to build 1 V8 engine let alone 2 versions.
On the other side of the coin, 2/3rds of the people that attend these races or watch them want to see these crashes. They don’t want someone to be hurt, but they want to see crashes. Making cars safe should be Nascar’s mission, BUT there is zero marketing reason to keep talking about it. Its a good thing to make improvements, but it puts fewer fans watching TV and going to the track by telling everyone repeatedly that the cars are being made safer. The specter of death is what separates auto racing, bull fighting and mountain climbing from other sports. Plus the people that are talking about it don’t understand what they are talking about…just listen to McReynolds and Moody. Nascar must stay focused on keeping the cars on the ground not because of driver safety concerns, but because one in the stands could kill the sport before it kills the driver. Look at viewership numbers…are they lower or higher than where they were in the 70’s. So work on the cars, start policing the drivers behaviors and do it behind closed doors. Pull the hard cards of people that decide to take it public. Above all, market the risks, but work behind the scenes to mitigate it.
I do not enjoy the damage and Preece is correct, someone is not going to walk away or be hauled away. I am no engineer and I am sure they are trying to find a solution. I just hope it’s not after a real tragedy.
Do the cars really need the full belly pan closing off the bottom? Seems like its a trade-off between rough-and-tumble dirty air from an open bottom, vs smoother air behind the car from a flat bottom.
These aren’t bumper cars. Bad stuff happens at high speeds when they’re treated as such. Clean up the driving or take your chances. It’s not the car’s fault.